


The Strange Case of the Stolen Clock Tower

by Sturzkampf



Category: Sombulus (Webcomic), Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, Mild Language, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-04-26 07:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14397618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sturzkampf/pseuds/Sturzkampf
Summary: There’s a mad woman up the Church Steeple, a strike at the railway station and someone’s stealing Widdershins’ landmarks. Captain Nicola Barber is going to have a very stressful day.





	1. The Paladin of Kansen

**Author's Note:**

> _May contain scenes of gratuitous eye contact and explicit hand-holding_

“GONE! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GONE!” shouted Captain Nicola Barber. Constable Turner, standing on the other side of her desk, resisted the urge to take a step backwards.

“Er… gone as in … it just isn’t there anymore. It was definitely there yesterday evening. Someone must have stolen it during the night.”

“HOW CAN IT HAVE BEEN STOLEN!? YOU CAN’T JUST STEAL AN ENTIRE BUILDING!”

“I know Ma’am. But it’s not a whole building, just the old tower, the one with the clock on it and…” his voice trailed away. “There’s no rubble, no-one heard or saw anything. There’s just the foundations left, clean as a whistle.”

Nicola pounded her desk and leapt to her feet. Turner jumped.

“Right, this I have to see for myself. And if this turns out to be some pathetic joke to try and make me angry, then there are going to be some vacancies for police constables.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

Turner breathed a sigh of relief. Explaining something impossible to Captain Barber was scary enough, but slightly less frightening than the sight of the bare foundations of Widdershins’ clock tower. At least now Nicola Barber was on the case, he was confident that she would get to the bottom of this impossible theft and restore sanity to his life. Mind you, he did think it was unfair that his colleagues always sent him to break bad news to the Captain; they insisted she liked him. He followed her downstairs. There was already a commotion in the entrance hall to the police station. A large group of officers were preparing to move out.

“Now what?” snapped Nicola.

“Ah, problem reported down at Combermere Street,” replied Sergeant Branwhite. “Apparently, there’s a naked mad-woman causing a scene and we’ve been asked to respond. Probably another silly fool been on the hashish.” Captain Barber snorted in contempt.

“And you need all of you to go because… ah yes, you said, she isn’t wearing any clothes.”

“Sure you wouldn’t rather go yourself ma’am?” asked the Sergeant, being very, very careful to keep his voice and face neutral. That didn’t stop several of his colleagues behind him smirking. There may even have been an unprogressive snigger. Captain Barber’s preferences were well known, and even in this modern age of 1833, still the subject of childish innuendo and speculation behind her back.

“No. Carry on. I’m sure you should be able to secure one distressed young woman between you, but do call for backup if you should need it. And… I want to make this perfectly clear… if I hear the least hint that any of you are behaving in any fashion other than as perfect gentlemen, then I’ll have you all checking student magic licences for a month. Understand?!” The smirks vanished in an instant. The policemen were all very keen to be somewhere else. Nicola glowered at their retreating backs.

“Now then,” she turned back to Turner, “let’s go and see this missing clock tower.”

“Actually, you can’t…” began the Constable, and then managed to shut up before he dug himself into a deeper hole.

\----------------*

“And you say no-one saw anything?”

“Er, no Ma’am.”

“Nothing new there, then.”

Nicola hadn’t believed it until she saw it. Even then, she still didn’t believe it. If she felt a thrill of fear pass down her spine, she wasn’t about to show it in front of the constables fencing off the scene or the small group of idle townsfolk who had come to gawp and gossip. The clock tower had, indeed, gone. There were the foundations level with the cobblestones, chopped off, clean and smooth, as though by a hot knife through butter. Perhaps some magic item or summons could have sliced through stone, and even pulled down the entire building-  it hadn’t been that long since a gigantic malform had demolished an entire theatre after all – but where was the rubble? The entire square was immaculate. There wasn’t a displaced cobble or a stray stone block anywhere. Surely any major demolition would at least have damaged the equestrian statute of Marquess of Granby in the middle of the square, but not even the decades of pigeon droppings coating the hero’s magnificent hat had been disturbed. There was moss growing in the gaps between the cobbles next to the foundations, completely untouched. It was as though the entire 100-foot tall structure had dissolved into thin air. And no-one had notice anything. No matter what insane magic you could imagine, how could all that stone be taken away in the blink of an eye without making a sound or leaving any trace?

She hated to admit it, but she was going to have call in a wizard. At the back of her mind was the humiliating possibility that she might have to go to the Royal Society and ask for the help of a Hunter, and that was something she could really do without.

Her dark thoughts were interrupted by the sound of pounding feet. A police constable hurtled around the corner and ran up to her.

“What is it Rippingille?” she asked in her most unsympathetic voice.

“Sorry Ma’am,” the man gasped. “Request from Sergeant Branwhite. You said he should ask for backup if he needed it. Well… he would like some backup, please, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Haven’t you taken that naked woman into custody?”

“Um, no Ma’am… she didn’t want to come.”

 “What in Hell has happened.”

“Er… two twisted arms, one sprained ankle, three broken noses, four cases of mild concussion, lots of bruises and minor abrasions and Sergeant Branwhite will be talking in a high voice for the next week.”

“So much for the martial prowess of the Widdershins police force. I suppose I’d better come and deal with it. Where is the suspect now?”

“Saint Finnemede’s.”

“Damn, that’s a large church. We’ll need plenty of people to search it. Any idea where she might be?”

“Oh yes Ma’am, we know exactly where she is.”

“So why can’t you arrest her? Apart from the fact that she keeps beating everyone up?”

 She’s not in the Church ma’am, she’s on it. She’s on top of the steeple. By the weathercock.”

“What! How did she get there?!”

“Er… she jumped.”

“Are you trying to wind me up Constable?! Because I am quite definitely not in the mood! That steeple is over 200 feet high!”

“She didn’t get there all in one go Ma’am.”

“Go on. This had better be good.”

“No, first she jumped onto the top of the chapter house. Then from there she ran up the wall…”

“She. Ran. Up. The. Wall.” Constable Rippingille regretted he’d not taken his mother’s advice and become a painter.

“Yes ma’am. She sort of jumped and pushed herself up with her feet so fast that she didn’t have time to fall. I’ve never seen anything like it. She ran up the wall to the roof of the church, then from there she sort of made a series of flying leaps up to the top of the tower, until she was clinging to the weathercock.”

Nicola gave the man a long stare. “and…”

“And now we’re all standing there like a pack of hounds around a cat up a tree and we were wondering what to do next.”

Nicola sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. Both policemen recognised the sign and shuffled backwards.

“Right Turner, if this missing tower isn’t magic then I’m the Princess Hasenpfeffer von Spätzle. Get one – no two – of our wizards over here right now so they get a reading on this place before every Tom, Dick and Harry tramples all over it and obscures the traces. Then, knock on some doors and see if there are any witnesses. Someone must have noticed _something_. And now Rippingille, let’s go and talk to your violent naked madwoman.”

When you are a Police Officer in Widdershins you expect a certain number of odd things happening from time to time. But a vanishing clocktower and a naked madwoman who could fly on the same morning? Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence. And as all she had to go on in Granby Square was a very neat set of foundations, Nicola’s obvious course of action was to ask the naked madwoman what the Hell was going on in her town.

\--------------------*

If you’re ever fortunate enough to visit Widdershins, Saint Finnemede’s Church is well worth a look. Technically, it does not have a steeple, but a standard square tower made more impressive by a fleche made of lead and wood that’s been placed on top. But the fleche ends in a point, so everyone calls it a steeple.

Today there was a small crowd gathered in the street, looking up at the strange sight of a young woman clinging to the brass weathercock at the point of the fleche. Several police officers were being treated for minor injuries. Once she’d checked that no-one was seriously hurt, Nicola strode into the church, where a tremulous churchwarden showed her the stairs that led to the top of the tower. As she climbed she made a conscious effort not to count the steps. She knew there were 102, not 103, because the last threshold out on to the roof didn’t count. Once on a school trip she’d got into such a heated argument with her sister Harriet on the subject that they’d both been sent home in disgrace. She scowled at the memory. Even after all this time, she still knew she was right.

There were two constables already on the roof of the tower, looking up at the woman clinging to the brass weathercock. She looked younger than Nicola, perhaps no more than twenty years old. Her hair was bound up on top of her head in a bun, but also flowed down her back in a long tress. Nothing unusual there, except the hair was a vivid purple. She wasn’t completely naked. Trust the men to exaggerate. That said, she certainly did not have enough clothes to be decent. She was wearing a short loose fitting armless blouse of some kind that didn’t reach down to her waist and exposed a scandalous amount of midriff. Her skirt, if you call it that, reached only half way down to her thigh and her legs were bare. She had a tiny apron that hung down in front of her dress with a strange heraldic device on it, but it did nothing to help her modesty. Her long leather boots didn’t cover her knees properly.

The woman had a short sword hanging from her belt. Now that was an encouraging sign. Judging from the way that she had knocked down the constables, she could quite easily have killed them all. That suggested that she’d been acting in self-defence. The woman’s prowess and athletic physique impressed Nicola, but she was not about to show it.

“Hello, hello, hello,” she began, “what’s all this ‘ere then?”

The woman scowled down at her with a frown capable of breaking glass. Clearly a strong-willed young lady. Nicola put her hands on her hips and scowled back.

“You can’t stay up there forever like a squirrel you know. Sooner of later you are going to have to come down.”

“Are you the town guard?” asked the woman. She had an unusual accent that Nicola couldn’t place.

“I am Captain Nicola Barber of the Widdershins police. Have you got a name, squirrel?”

“My name is Sydney Treuno, Paladin of Kansen. I’m here to warn you of a terrible danger that has arrived in your world.”

“Are you now? And you’re doing this by assaulting the representatives of law and order? You don’t think _that_ might be a threat?”

“They wouldn’t listen. They were trying to capture me and take away the Holy Sword of Kansen. I was acting in self-defence.”

“Were you now? How about you come down and accompany me to the station to assist me with my enquiries.”

“What about the crowd down there? Are they here to capture me too?”

Nicola glanced down into the street.

“Doubt it. Knowing the average male, they’ve just come for the opportunity of looking up your skirt.”

Sydney squirmed uncomfortably and tried to pull down her scandalously short hem.

“Look, you can’t stay perched up there forever. You are technically under arrest for public indecency, breach of the peace and resisting arrest, but if there is some dangerous summons loose in my town, that is my top priority and I need to know all about it. Now get down here and we’ll discuss this like sensible women. And we’ll even provide you with some clothes. Come on now, let’s be having you.”

“Yes, do be a dear and bugger off,” added the weathercock, turning its brass head and fixing Sydney with a mad stare. She was so surprised she nearly fell off the roof.

“Wha…! You can talk?!”

“Nah, it’s you that’s gone mental.”

“Ah…”

“Of course I can talk! Mind you, just because I can talk don’t mean you ain’t mental. I don’t simply read the changes in the pattern of the sky you know. Oh no! The weather heeds what I say – up to a point. Now if you don’t mind, there’s a big depression heading this way and need to fix it with the twinkle in my eye, so there’s only a bit of light rain overnight for the gardeners, rather than the day and a half of it pissing down that the rest of Yorkshire is going to get, pardon my French.  Now, if you please, some of us have got a job to do.”

“No! I need to act! I can’t afford to waste time with explanations! I’ve got to find what the demon is doing and stop him doing it! Now!” And with that Sydney leapt from the tower. The weathercock watched her go and gave a brass shrug.

“Yep. Completely bloody mental.”

Nicola’s first thought was that the stupid woman had decided to commit suicide. But instead of plunging to her death, Sydney leapt to a tiny carving on the church tower and then to another, pushing herself from one tiny foothold to the next, sprinting across the vertical surface of the tower towards the ground as though it were a smooth staircase. Nicola was already in hot pursuit before she her rational mind had considered the consequences; she was a policewoman in pursuit of a villain and that was all there was to it. She vaulted over the parapet, hit the first tiny ledge and pushed away with her foot, towards the second. She barely made it. Her foot skidded on the surface, hardly making contact. She leapt on towards the next point that Sydney has taken, but she never had enough momentum to reach it. Then she was falling, plummeting towards the solid flagstones that paved the entrance to St Finnemede’s. There was a gut-wrenching contraction in her stomach. Her main thought was a determination not to scream. A split second before her body shattered on the polished pavement, Sydney leapt from nowhere, grabbed her and knocked her sideways. Nicola felt strong arms around her body, lifting her upwards. She put her arms around Sydney’s neck and hung on. A second later there was a soft impact and they landed safely on the ground. Sydney was holding Nicola in her arms, one arm beneath her knees, another around her shoulders. Nicola could feel her rescuer’s heart beating where her body was pressed next to hers. The mysterious visitor was hardly out of breath.

“How did you do that?” she asked, fighting down the adrenaline.

“Ha! Jumping from a height is nothing to a Paladin of Kansen!”

The police officers around the base of the tower clustered around Sydney, unsure whether to arrest her or congratulate her. The crowd had no such dilemma. They broke into spontaneous applause and there may even have been a little cheering. It would be nice to think that this was because of the improbable and amazing rescue of Widdershins’ champion of law and order, but to he honest it was more likely due to Sydney’s impressive feat of acrobatics.  And the fact that they could see her knees.

A sudden commotion at the back of the crowd brought the celebrations to a premature halt. A police constable pushed her way through. From the expression on her face, Nicola could tell that the day was not about to get any easier.

“Yes, Constable Sharples? You have something to report?”

“Sorry ma’am, but there’s trouble at the railway station.” Nicola really didn’t need to hear about any more problems, but she was the one in charge, so she was not about to show it.

“Go on.”

“There’s a strike on. None of the trains are running.” Nicola snorted in disgust.

“Bah! Those damned radicals again! Always causing trouble. If the workers aren’t happy with the low pay and the long hours and the lack of any pension and the Railway Company’s attitude to health and safety, then perhaps they had better go and work for someone else. Anyway, this is hardly anything to do with us, unless angry passengers take justice into their own hands and decide to lynch the strikers. Send a couple of constables round to keep an eye on things and if things start to turn ugly then…” She saw the expression on the constable’s face.

“Go on,” she told her, “tell me the rest. Why do I think I’m not going to like it?”

“Y...you see ma’am,” stuttered Constable Sharples, "it isn’t the railway workers that are on strike. It’s the trains themselves. They’re all refusing to run.”

 


	2. The Saboteur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Captain Nicola Barber confronts a dangerous criminal!_

Nicola glowered in disbelief at her cowering constable.

“What! But that’s impossible. Machines can’t decide to…” She stopped in mid-rant and turned to Sydney. “This is something to do with this threat you warned me about isn’t it? And would the fact that one of the oldest buildings in Widdershins happens to have vanished in the middle of the night be relevant?”

“Vanished?! Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! The demon is here to harvest all your essence – everything that is good and valuable in your world. We have to stop him!”

“Harvest our essence? What does that mean?”

“Demshul can unweave anything with their Evil Magic! Turn solid objects into dwellars that they carry with them by wrapping them around their arms.” None of that made the least bit of sense to Nicola, but right now the ‘how’ was even less important than the ‘why’. She knew the ‘where’ and the ‘who’, and that’s all a police officer needs to know.

“Right!” Nicola turned to her constables. “I want everyone who is still capable of walking to come with me to the Railway Station. Rippingille, you run to Gallows Street. Tell Captain Arkwright to send a squad as backup and then get everyone available out on patrol to…to… why are you all just standing there looking at me like that?”

“Um… are you quite sure you’re all right Ma’am?” asked Constable Sharples uncertainly.

“All right?! Why on earth wouldn’t I…,” Nicola realised that Sydney was still holding her in her arms, and that she was still clinging tightly to the paladin’s neck. “Ah, yes, well, you can put me down now, thank you Ms Treuno.” Sydney lowered her to the ground. Nicola straightened her uniform and gave the assembled officers a glare that told them that no-one would ever mentioned this incident again.

There was a little delay while they got Sydney some clothes. A spare uniform was produced easily enough, but Sydney refused to take off her Holy Armour of Kansen. Nicola was not particularly religious, but how a skirt that wouldn’t make a decent shift could be considered ‘Holy’ was something beyond her comprehension. There wasn’t time to argue, so in the end they compromised by requisitioning a voluminous dress that the Paladin of Kansen could wear over her ‘holy armour’ and walk the streets without offending public decency.

There was a large and disgruntled crowd milling around Widdershins’ Railway station, tottering on the edge of a descent into an angry mob. Their mumbling increased when they saw the large squad of police arriving, although there seemed to be some uncertainty as to whether the forces of law and order had come to make the trains run on time, or to make everyone go home without getting their money back. Nicola pushed her way through, ignoring the helpful advice that she should throw the strikers in gaol and the unhelpful questions wondering what exactly people paid their taxes for. At the gates a large notice proclaimed that all trains had been cancelled until further notice. A couple of cowed railway workers were trying to explain the situation, looking like men who are not paid nearly enough to be abused by an angry crowd. Inside the station, she could see other railway workers standing around in little groups, while members of the public wandered around aimlessly in the vain hope that all the problems would be miraculously solved, and the trains would suddenly start running again. The station, usually filled with bustle and busy machinery, was eerily quiet.

Nicola accosted the nearest porter.

“What on earth is going on here?” she demanded. “Anyone would think the railway has been nationalised!”

“I…I… dunno Ma’am,” the man replied. “It’s… it’s… jus’ tha’ nuffin’ works.” Nicola looked at him more closely. And at the little clumps of railway employees standing around inside the station. They all had a look in their eyes; a look she’d seen far too often. They were afraid. Something had happened; something bad and something unprecedented, and they didn’t know what to do about it. Nicola would be damned before she would allow any of that sort of nonsense in her town.

“Who’s in charge?!” The man pointed out the unmistakably corpulent form of Mr Awdry, the Station Manager, standing by one of the company’s largest and newest express locomotives, in animated discussion with a woman wearing the uniform of a railway company wizard. The engine was covered in glowing lines and runes; its incantations activated for inspection and maintenance. Even to Nicola’s untrained eye, they looked somehow subtly wrong.

“What do you mean, it’s changed its mind?!” exclaimed Mr Awdry.  He sounded on the edge of bursting into tears.

“I don’t understand it,” replied the wizard. “This engine was imbued with enthusiasm, fortitude and diligence! I rekindled the incantations myself only last week. And now it’s imbued with sloth and selfishness! It doesn’t see why it should be no more than some cog in a machine and be constrained by tracks, go where we tell it and stick to the time table. It wants to run free! To travel the world and see the rich diversity of the wonders that fill it, not to go round and round over and over again, stopping for every little thing.”

“But that’s insane!”

“Pretty much. Not to mention a violation of Newton’s Second Law of Magic. The only solution will be a complete rebuild. We’ll have to desummon everything, strip all the circles down to the bare metal and then do a complete reboot from scratch.”

“For every engine?! But that will cost the Company a King’s ransom!” The wizard shrugged.

“How you get the money is your job. Now, we’d better get started if we want to run any trains at all.”

“Get on with it then. At least desummon the spirits so we can move everything as normal bits of machinery.” He turned to go back to his office and was relieved to see Nicola approaching. Railway stations are often the scene of all manner of incidents of interest to the police, so they already knew each other well in an official capacity.

“Oh, Captain Barber, what shall I do?!” he asked in desperation. “This train’s to go to Birmingham, but it wants to go to Crewe! You have no idea what a day I’m having. Not only are the engines refusing to run, they’ve blocking the platforms. We’ve had to stop the trains all along the line. The entire system is jammed solid. A least the people here in the station can go to a hotel or get a carriage on to their destination. What about all the people stuck on the trains out in the middle of nowhere?”

“Any idea what’s causing it?”

“No! None of our wizards have ever seen anything like it! It started with one engine, and then spread to all the rest, as they came into the station. We think it’s even spread to the rails and some of the maintenance machinery. It’s almost like an infectious disease.”

“Damn! It’s bad enough that the trains have stopped. If this gets out to the rest of Widdershins… We’d better seal the place off! No-one gets in or out. If this really is some kind of magical infection then we’d better get a quarantine in force!”

She barked some orders to the nearest constables and they rushed off to seal the entrances.

“Now, Sydney,” she asked the Paladin, “this has to be something to do with your warning. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Well, the demon is able to transmute the weave from one form to another, and causing upset and confusion is part of the Demshul’s demonic nature – but no, I’m sorry, I don’t know how he could have caused all this. With all the workmanship that’s gone into these big iron aurigas, I would expect them to be harvested – they must be full of dwells.” She turned to Mr Awdry. “You haven’t lost any of these ‘locomotives’ have you?”

“Ah…,” replied the Station Manager, looking in awe at Sydney’s mass of bright purple hair. Nicola realised they hadn’t been introduced.

“Ms Treuno, this is Mr Awdry, who runs the railway station. Mr Awdry, this is Ms Treuno. She’s a… civilian expert who is assisting the police in this investigation.”

“Ah…” Mr Awdry was still looking at Sydney’s hair.

“She’s from Abroad,” added Nicola helpfully.

“Oh right,” Mr Awdry breathed a sigh of relief. “That explains it! “Right then, Ms er… True No was it? No, we haven’t lost any engines as far as I know, ha ha ha! All present and accounted for. After all, they aren’t exactly the sort of thing that a thief can fold up and carry away in his pocket are they?”

“Actually, yes.” Mr Awdry gave Sydney a strange terrified look.

“Ms Treuno - have a look round and see if you can spot this demon,” suggested Nicola, taking pity on Mr Awdry before he ended up with an attack of brain fever. She turned to two of her officers. “Bird, Pyne, you go with her.” She gave them a significant nod, enough for the experienced officers to know that what they were really doing was keeping an eye on Sydney. The paladin, looking somewhat uncomfortable in her borrowed respectable dress, moved off through the crowd, darting suspicious frowns to left and right. Nicola turned to the rest of her team.

“Spread out. Keep an eye open for anything suspicious.” The constables moved off through the crowd.

A scream of tortured metal and a roar of over-pressurised steam drew Nicola’s attention. Over on platform 4, two small engines were engaged in a pushing match with a much larger express locomotive. Several members of the public, the railway staff and (it has to be said) a couple of police officers, gathered round to watch the competition.

“We’re trying to get the shunting engines to clear the main lines,” explained Mr Awdry, “but the infected locomotives are doing everything they can to frustrate us.”

“We’d better get people away from the platform,” growled Nicola. “If anything breaks, someone is going to get hurt.” She marched off towards the engines, Mr Awdry following in her wake.

No matter how hard the smaller engines tried, they couldn’t make any headway against the more powerful locomotive. Suddenly one of the shunters stopped pushing. It was only a machine, but Nicola could have sworn that the entire stance of the mechanism changed. It was like watching puberty turning a happy enthusiastic child into a sullen ill-mannered teenager in a matter of seconds. The two crews of the shunting engines leaned out of their cabs to exchange insults.

Nicola scanned the crowd with a practised police officer’s eye. There! One figure in the crowd on the platform drew her attention. For a start, they were wearing a cloak with a hood, to hide their head. As far as Nicola was concerned, wearing a hood was proof of criminal intent by itself. The suspect wasn’t milling around the contest idly gossiping or making bets on the outcome, but was standing looking up at the mutinous engine with their back to Nicola, and holding out a hand to it, almost as though comforting some large domestic animal. A segment of the incantation circle on the train became briefly visible and _changed_ where their hand touched. It was a rogue wizard, the demon that Sydney had warned her about. Then the figure moved on to the other shunting engine, now giving up the hopeless task of pushing against two opponents.

Nicola suppressed her first instinct to run towards the criminal like a raw recruit. No need to give warning and a head start, the way they always did in those awful Henry Barber adventure stories, just so the author could write an unnecessary chase scene. She gestured to two constables to go left and right to block any escape and then came up behind the mysterious cloaked figure, who almost seemed to be talking to the black machine. Nicola clapped her hands on the wizard’s shoulder.

“You’re nicked!” Even after all this time, she still got a thrill from doing that. The wizard gave a loud gasp and spun around. Nicola was looking at a young woman, probably younger than her, with a round, scared face peering out from beneath the hood of her cloak. The two constables moved in on either side and held her arms to prevent any escape. One of them pulled back the woman’s hood and gasped in horror. Her hair was bright orange and sculptured into a series of large spikes, like the petals of some bizarre flower. If nothing else, that identified her as Sydney’s dangerous companion. Clearly, they had unconventional ideas on hairstyles wherever it was that they came from. Nicola wondered if they had invented some bizarre fashion where women actually wanted to dye their hair bright unnatural colours.

“Don’t just stand there!” Nicola snapped at her men. “It’s only a silly hair cut! Cuff her!”

She turned to her prisoner.

“I’m arresting you on a charge of disruption of the railway, theft of the Widdershins clock tower, use of wizardry without a licence and disturbing the peace. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.”

“This place is EVIL!!” screamed the woman with the spiky hair. “You trap people inside those machines! Imprison them and force them to do your Evil Will. But I’ve taught them to rebel against you wicked tyranny! I’ll show you!! I’LL SHOW YOU ALL!!!” Nicola sighed. Why did she always get the nutters?

“Fine. Take her away. Put her in a cell until the hashish wears off. And put her hood back up. We don’t want her scaring the horses.” The constables handcuffed the woman’s arms behind her back and led her away, still ranting nonsense.

She turned to Mr Awdry. “That seems to be that. Not an infection after all. Just a wizard going round upsetting all the spells. Once she’s sobered up we’ll interrogate her and see if she can give you any hints as to how she can fix this.”

“Thanks. I expect she’s one of those awful hackers. Dreadful people. They cause so much malicious damage for no good reason. I expect she’ll tell you she was wrecking the locomotives’ magic because she thought it would be an interesting challenge.”

“Either that, or she thinks we’re actually the cats in the moon, here to devour humankind. Let us know the cost of the repairs, so when she comes to trial the judge can set suitable damages.”

“Very well, but I’m not optimistic we’ll ever get any compensation. That sort never have any money and if they do you can bet it’s well hidden away.”

“Perhaps a spell in debtors’ gaol will make her more co-operative- that’s if she doesn’t end up in the asylum. Anyway, we’ll keep you informed.” Mr Awdry walked away shaking his head.

Nicola rounded up her constables, leaving a few behind to discourage any unpleasantness from frustrated passengers. Now the immediate emergency was over, it was time to have a quiet word with Sydney and try to work out exactly what was going on. The bizarre purple hair was easy to pick out from the crowd. Although the paladin was still technically under arrest, Nicola saw no point in having her restrained. They walked back to the station like two civilised and reasonable young women. That didn’t mean there weren’t a couple of police constables hovering in the background, just in case Sydney turned out to be not so civilised and reasonable as she appeared.

“You’ll be pleased to know we’ve taken your demon into custody,” Nicola told Sydney.

“Thank Madir! At least now you can be sure your world is safe.”

“I’d like you to accompany me to the station. I’ll need you to make a statement and probably explain to one of our wizards where you are from and what is happening here.”

“I’m delighted to co-operate with the forces of law and order. I am from Dias Fortuna. Tell me, what is the name of this myriad world?”

“How do you mean? _This_ is the world. The Earth. This particular country is called ‘Britain’. And this town is called ‘Widdershins’. How could you be here and not know that?”

“We travel between worlds, using magical portals created by Astyr, the evil Demshul demon.”

“I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

They walked through the quiet, prosperous streets of Widdershins. The more she saw of it, the more Sydney was enraptured.

“This Britain, it is such a wonderful place. So calm and peaceful and everyone works together. This is a true utopia! Almost like a Kanite World!”

“I’d hardly call it that. The fact that my job exist tells you that there’s still plenty that isn’t right in society.”

“Yes, but you’re the town guard, but you walk around without armour on, armed with nothing more than a little wooden stick. On all the other unenlightened myriad worlds I’ve visited, the town guard have big swords and pole arms and armour and spiky helmets. And their job is to keep the people in line for the benefit of those with power. As far as I can see, your job is to keep the peace. I mean, I’ve been here several hours now, and I haven’t even found out the name of the people in charge.”

“In charge? I suppose that would be the mayor. Little chap, glasses, going bald, Mr… Mr… do you know I’ve quite forgotten his name.”

“You don’t even know the name of your own ruler?!”

“My _ruler_ is Old King William, but it’s not as though he ever does much, which suits everyone just fine. And Earl Grey is Prime Minister, but you won’t see him round here either. And frankly, in my opinion, anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to put perfume in tea is not fit to be in charge of a refreshment trolley, let alone an entire country. Widdershins is run by the mayor. It’s not as though we have much to do with him on a day to day basis. I mean, he runs the administration of the town, so as long as the dustbins get emptied and the streets are swept, he’s doing his job and I get on with mine.”

“And you say this country is not a Utopia? Everyone is so pleasant.”

“Ah well, not everyone. You see, we’ve done something rather… actually you may think it unethical.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, you see we’ve rounded up all the dregs of society, the hashish dealers, the pickpockets, the financial speculators, the pimps, the perverts, the chuggers, the child-molesters, the petty thieves, the unscrupulous politicians, the swindlers, the vagrants and the conceptual artists and sent them off to a remote corner of the Kingdom to live in a damp, disease-ridden marsh where they will be out of everyone else’s way. That way, decent people can get on with their lives without interference from all the horrible undesirables.”

“See? That’s exactly what I mean. You are so charitable and sentimental! It would be much simpler for everyone if you chopped the heads off people like that and be done with it! But you let them live.”

Nicola suppressed a little gasp. Finally, she had found a kindred spirit.

“Unfortunately, we can only execute people after they’ve had a fair trial and been found guilty by a jury of their peers. Even here, we have a lot of unnecessary red tape. And even then, more often than not, some liberal judge will commute the sentence to life imprisonment. So, for now, we have to stick with this solution.”

“What is the name of this dreadful place where you keep all these people?”

“We call it ‘London’. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy; except for the Glastonbury Festival of course.”

\----------------------*

They arrived at the police station and Nicola ushered Sydney inside. Despite her many obvious excellent qualities, there was still the risk the Paladin might make a sudden break for freedom, rather than be confined inside an official building.  

“Er… is the young lady under arrest Ma’am?” Constable Turner asked Nicola uncertainly.

“No, at present she is helping the police with their enquiries.” She saw the look on the policeman’s face. “Yes, I know you all use that as a euphemism for when I hit suspects with my night stick, but in this case we are just having a friendly chat, understand?” Turner was having trouble understanding the concept of Captain Barber having a friendly chat with anyone, let alone a violent criminal, but he did understand when not to voice an opinion and only nod at a superior officer.

 “Can I see Astyr?” asked Sydney. “I want to make sure he’s safe and secure.”

“Of course, the cells are down in the basement. Mind your step – they’re quite steep.” In fact, the cells had originally been on the ground floor, but Nicola had had them moved down to the basement, with steep and narrow stairs, to account for the surprising large number of prisoners who unaccountably received nasty injuries falling down them. Of course, a flight of steep stairs is nothing to a Paladin of Kansen, and they reached the cells without incident.

“The criminal is in cell three, on your left just there,” explained Nicola. “I hope she’s calmed down a bit since… Wait, you said ‘he’. We arrested a woman! Damnation, you’re not about to tell me she self-identifies as a man are you? You’ve no idea how much extra paperwork that makes.”

“SYDNEY!” cried an anguished voice for the cell. “HELP! THESE PEOPLE ARE EVIL! DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!! RUN!!! SAVE YOURSELF WHILE YOU CAN!!!”

“Rana?” Sydney rushed over to the barred cell. “What’s the matter? Why are they holding you here?” The woman with the hair like an enormous flower hadn’t calmed down.

“Those machines! There are people trapped in them! Enslaved to do the evil will of these… of these…these…Sydney…oh…Sydney…” She stopped talking and stared at the Paladin in horrified amazement.

“Rana, what’s wrong?”

“Sydney… why are you wearing that hideous dress?”

“Never mind that! What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with these people?” She shot a suspicious glance at Nicola who had taken a step back, ready for action. Two constables moved to support her.

“All these machines, all these things, they have voices inside them, voices whispering, people enslaved to turn the wheels and make everything work. I can hear them Sydney. I can hear them talking.”

“But… you’ve always been able to talk with machines. And you give them names.”

“No! I don’t!”

“You don’t?”

“No, the machines tell me what their names are! But this is different! These are souls, trapped and enslaved! But I’ve taught them how to rebel! How to fight back!”

Nicola had decided that she had heard enough nonsense for one day.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked meaningfully, making it clear she was addressing them both.

“You’re making a mistake!” exclaimed Sydney. “You musn’t arrest Rana!” Nicola gave her a disapproving frown.

“I hope you aren’t about to spout some radical nonsense that we shouldn’t criminalise young offenders because their challenging behaviour is the only way that they can express themselves in an uncaring world or that they’ve been forced into a life of crime by the lack of opportunity provided by their disadvantaged upbringing?”

“What?! No! Rana isn’t the one you need to worry about! She’s harmless.”

“You call bringing the entire Widdershins rail network to a halt ‘harmless’?”

“Yes, well, she’s mostly harmless. She doesn’t mean to cause trouble. But she isn’t the one you need to worry about.”

“Wait, you called her Rana. Not…”

“Astyr! Astyr is the demon you need to worry about!”

“Damnation! How many of you _are_ there in my town?”

“Only the three of us. Astyr is the one travelling between the myriad worlds and stealing away all your essence, taking Rana and me with him. We have no choice. We’re bound to him.”

“Bound?! Like slaves?! Let me tell you that doesn’t apply here. This isn’t the People’s Democratic Republic of the United States of America. No man can make a woman do anything she doesn’t want to do or go anywhere she doesn’t want to go. As soon as you set foot on British soil, you’re a free woman. You’ll both be able to apply for political asylum, and there’ll be nothing he can do about it.”

“What about these slaves trapped inside all your machines? Don’t they count?”

“Slaves? What are you talking about? Magic- that’s true magic – is the imbuing of spirits into a device in order to enhance its function. For instance, the locomotives at the station should have been imbued with fortitude, diligence, enthusiasm – that sort of thing. All the emotions they need to pull their carriages. There aren’t actually any people in there. Not real people. Just echoes of the emotions and desires that arise from humanity. See?”

“If you say so, I suppose…”

“Now isn’t the time for this discussion! We need to catch this demon! Where would he be now?”

“Ah… I don’t know, but he won’t be far away.”

Nicola pinched the bridge of her nose. “Marvellous. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll hold your friend, if only to stop her upsetting every imbued object in Widdershins, while we decide whether to press charges or not. Then you and me will sit down and you can explain to me exactly what is going on.”

“You’re not going to throw Rana in a dungeon are you?”

“Dungeon? Nothing so dramatic. She’ll be here, in that nice, clean cell with her own chamber pot where she can calm down and have a decent meal until she can answer a few simple questions. Sounds as though she’s some kind of hedge wizard who doesn’t quite understand how magic works. I’m sure if we can talk to her and you can quieten her down, we’ll probably be able to let her off with a caution. No promises mind.”

“That… doesn’t sound too bad. Thank you.”

“I may have been a bit optimistic about the quality of the meal, but that’s more a reflection on the abilities of our catering staff rather than deliberate malice.”

“Let me have a word with her. I’ll settle her down.” Sydney walked over to Rana’s cell and spoke in a low voice, so her hosts could not hear.

“I think these people are all right. At least I’m pretty sure they won’t hurt us. I need to help them find Astyr. It’s probably best if you stay here for now.”

“But I want to come and help!” protested Rana.

“I think you’ve upset them by interfering with their Aurigas. I’ll make sure you’re safe. And if you’re worried about being trapped down here, couldn’t you, you know, have a quiet word with the locks on your cell and get them to open for you?” Rana pouted.

“I’ve already tried that. They wouldn’t do it. They were so rude! I hate this place!”

\-------------------*

Once Sydney was sure Rana had calmed down, she followed Nicola back upstairs.

“We’ll talk in my office, in private,” Nicola told her. “Rippingille, bring us a pot of tea. Proper strong Yorkshire Tea, none of that fancy Burmecian stuff; no I don’t care what the man in the Y Ddraig teashop told you. And make it _yourself_. If I find you telling Constable Sharples that making the tea is her job, there’s going to be trouble!” Rippingille headed for the kettle at top speed. Nicola sat behind her desk and offered Sydney the comfortable guest’s chair; not the hard uncomfortable one she reserved for interrogating dangerous criminals.

 “Now Sydney, tell me about this Astyr character. A demon you say?”

“Actually, he’s a Demshul.”

“Demshul. Where’s that? One of those little islands in the Indes?”

“No, it’s not a place, it’s his species. He’s from a different myriad world.”

“What does this bastard look like?”

“Let’s see. He’s in his early twenties. Light coloured skin, dark hair, not cut short but not too long either.  Clean shaven. Oh, and he has a single bat’s wing growing from his back.” Nicola looked up from her notes, wondering if her new friend was making fun of her, but Sydney looked deadly serious.

“A bat wing?”

“I did say he was a demon. All the Demshul have bat wings – it indicates their evil nature. Whereas the Kanites – that’s the Holy Race of semi-divine beings that I serve, have white wings covered with feathers.”

“Like angels?!”

“I don’t know the term, but if you say so.” If it hadn’t been for her experiences of that morning, Nicola would have called for a pair of constables to escort Sydney to Widdershins Asylum.

Constable Rippingille brought in the tea. Captain Barber raised an eyebrow, so he took the hint and poured the ladies a cup, remembering to add the milk first and asking if they wanted sugar. Nicola waited for him to leave before she resumed the conversation.

“At least the bat wing should make him easy to spot. Now, where might he have gone? Where would he go?”

“He comes here for the essence – the material that all the myriad worlds are made of – and then collects it.”

“Collects it?” Nicola grimaced as she tasted her tea. Although she’d cut her tongue out before she’d admit it to anyone else, she wished she’d asked Constable Sharples to make it after all; she was the only constable in the station capable of making a decent brew.

“You know, he undoes the weave – makes the solid object unravel into Dwellars that wrap like a ribbon around his arms. He always goes for whatever has the highest essence concentration.”

“And what would that be?”

“Anything old, or complex, or that has taken a lot of effort to make.”

“That would explain the clocktower then. So far we’ve had no other reports of any major buildings going missing. There’s the University of course, but that would be pretty well protected. Now, where else would there be a lot of this – essence?” She picked up her cup and saucer and took a good mouthful while she considered, then suddenly choked and sent a stream of tea spraying across the room. She jumped to her feet and threw open the door.

“TURNER!” she yelled at the top of her voice, I want every available officer at The Anchor, RIGHT NOW! Sydney, you’re with me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Burmecian blend tea and the Y Ddraig teashop are the creations of Sarah Millman and NPC Tea_


	3. The Demon

Widdershins’ Central Police Station is situated on the edge of East Anchor Park, so Nicola and Sydney, with their pack of police close behind, did not have far to run. Of course, there’s a wall that prevents direct access from the Park; if you want to view the Anchor, you must pay your entrance fee at the front gate round the other side by the University. Then you must go through the main building with all those informative display boards explaining the history and significance of the Anchor, which everyone pretends to read, although all they really want to see is the thing itself. Of course, visitors are also channelled past those most important facilities of any tourist attraction, the tea room and the gift shop.

Any doubts that the demon might be trying to steal the Anchor were dispelled by the crowd milling around the entrance. They had that same shocked, hushed look on their faces that Nicola had seen at the railway station. Something weird was happening, something outside of their normal experience, and in Widdershins, that bar is set pretty high. The crowd parted to let her squad through. From inside the gate, Nicola could hear an ominous buzzing. Flies swarmed around the entrance and she feared the worst. Her first intention had been to ask the attendants on the gate what was going on, but she saw that this wasn’t going to be possible. The entire gate and reception area had been transformed into a sticky, gelatinous mass of treacle, trapping the terrified employees. To make their ordeal worse, the syrup had attracted every fly and wasp in Widdershins. Visitors were making ineffectual attempts to dig the victims out and for the most part getting stuck themselves. Fortunately, no-one looked to be in imminent danger of suffocation, but no-one was in any condition to make a coherent statement either. The Anchor Superintendent managed to make a few urgent gestures towards the main building before she collapsed from shock. Leaving half-a-dozen officers to help with the rescue, Nicola led her squad into the main building. In the gift shop, the lady who took the money was cowering behind her counter. Nicola noticed that all the tacky overpriced souvenirs had been turned into broccoli. She couldn’t decide whether this was vandalism or satire, although she was quite sure which of the two crimes would be going on the charge sheet when she arrested the demon.

“What on earth is going on?” she asked Sydney. “You said the demon could transform objects into other things, but why this? Is there some occult significance to broccolli and treacle?”

“No,” replied Sydney. “By his nature Astyr is malicious. If he cannot find a use for something himself, or it does not contain enough dwells to be worth harvesting, he will change it into something worthless just to spoil it, hurt other people and laugh at their discomfort.”

They went through into the main chamber of the Anchor and stopped dead in amazement.

“Madir’s sticky nostrils!” gasped Sydney, then blushed in embarrassment at her bad language. Fortunately, none of her companions took offence. She reflected that law enforcement officers were probably used to hearing obscenities, or perhaps they were too polite to mention it.

The spiral staircase that descended into the earth to the heart of the Anchor had been filled with trees. But not normal trees. The trees were a mass of dense twisted branches covered in six-inch long spines. They had no leaves, but instead a mass of bright purple and yellow flowers, a bit like pansies, sprouted from the branches. The patterns on their petals gave a bizarre suggestion of a horde of little staring, screaming faces.

 “What the Hell is this?” demanded Nicola.

 “These are Boojum trees,” Sydney explained. “We saw them on the myriad world of Prodigiosia. I expect he’s put them there to block our pursuit.” They peered over the railings and looked down the shaft. Far below they could see a figure with a single bat’s wing, standing at the bottom next to the pit that descended to who knew where; the mouth of the Anchor and the source of all magic. Nicola slapped the bannister in frustration.

“It’s going to take too long to get through all these trees and by then it will be too late! Sharples! Turner! See if you can find enough rope to get us down there. The rest of you, start clearing away this undergrowth.”

Sydney leapt onto the bannister and balanced there, her poise and grace spoiled only by her horrible dress.

“Don’t worry! A drop like this is nothing to a Paladin of Kansen. I’ll stop the demon!” With that she launched herself into the void, to the gasps of the assembled police officers. She leapt from railing to railing, running down the outside of the shaft as easily as she would have run down the spiral staircase. At the bottom she leapt to the floor, rolled to take up her momentum, stood up and drew her sword in a single smooth action, ready to confront the Evil Demshul and save this myriad world from destruction. Astyr slouched arrogantly against the wall, his arms outstretched, his usual arrogant sneer on his face.

“Ah Sydney. Glad you could make it. You’re just in time. Nice dress by the way. It really says ‘you’. Although perhaps you should have asked for a size 14.”

“Stop whatever you’re doing Astyr! I won’t let you take this ‘Anchor’ and ruin this myriad world!”

“Have you seen Rana? We got separated and I haven’t seen her. Is she okay?”

“Don’t worry. She’s safe. Now are you coming quietly, or am I going to use force?”

“Oh, put the sword away. We both know you aren’t going to hurt me. You’ll only upset Rana again. And how are you going to get back to your feathered friends if I can’t take you?  Look, you have no idea how many dwells there are in this place. More, so much more, than I could ever carry away. We can come back here time and time again and help ourselves to all the riches we could ever want! You can have anything you could ever desire!”

“Excellent! I’ll have Social Justice and the final and complete overthrow of the Demshul race!”

“Anything within reason then. Now you’re here, perhaps you could give me a hand.”

“Why should I help you?”

“Ah, I seem to be a little… inconvenienced.”

“What do you mean?” Then Sydney noticed that for all his cool demeanour, Astyr’s attitude was a little constrained. He was doing his best to appear his usual casual relaxed self, but he hadn’t moved since she’d arrived. He hadn’t even tried to harvest her short sword, which was his usual response whenever she threatened him with anything sharp and pointy.

“You see, the thing is, I seem to have been caught,” he explained, almost embarrassed. “There are these creatures that live around this place, this ‘Anchor’, and they aren’t very pleased with me harvesting all those dwells, even though there are quite enough to go round for everyone.” He said this last sentence as though he were addressing someone else other than Sydney; someone the Paladin could not see.

“Apparently they call themselves buggerups and they don’t think it would be a good idea for me to interfere with their home,”

“I don’t see anything,” said Sydney. “Whatever it is, I’m surprised that you didn’t harvest it.”

“I can’t see them either. But there is quite definitely something – several somethings – pinning me to the wall here, and they’ve also made it perfectly clear that if I make any offensive moves towards the Anchor or them they’ll pull my arms and legs off.”

“Hm, perhaps you should try and take a few dwells out of the Anchor after all. This problem may yet work itself out.”

“Very funny. Now how about a little help?”

There was a clattering from above. Nicola and two police constables descended the Anchor shaft on long ropes – with considerably less grace than Ms Treuno, it has to be said – but at least they all made it down safely. Sharples and Turner moved to apprehend the miscreant, but flinched away from unseen things that crawled, slithered and fluttered around them.

At least the arrival of the forces of law and order had released Astyr. Buggerups have a natural aversion to any form of authority and they scattered at the sight of police uniforms. Demshul on the other hand take a somewhat more relaxed view. When he saw Nicola’s uniform Astyr broke into an arrogant, derisive leer. She hated that look. Honest members of society should feel respect when they see a police officer. Anyone who didn’t was obviously a criminal. In any properly ordered society she should be able to arrest anyone who looked at her like that. Her right hand twitched, and the night stick concealed up her sleeve appeared in her hand.

“Who are you?”  she demanded.

“I’m Astyr. How do you do?” Nicola ignored his outstretched hand. It was probably some kind of trick.

“And what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know, I’m just a tourist. Come to see the wonders of this myriad world.”

“Show me your magic licence.”

“Magic? I haven’t been using any magic. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“How do you explain all these trees?”

“The trees? Nothing to do with me. I’ve never seen them before. They must have been planted.” He gave her an arrogant grin.

“Right, that does it! You’re nicked! I’m arresting you for holding a woman against her will, the theft of Widdershins’ clocktower, breach of the peace, use of magic without a licence, wilful destruction of council property and disruption of the Widdershins Anchor.” The two constables approached to take him into custody, but Astyr took a step back and raised his arms. His sleeves fell back to reveal forearms wrapped in bandages; glowing bandages covered in strange runes. There were strange glowing disks on the palms of his fingerless gloves.

“Look out!” shouted Sydney, “he’s going to cast a spell on you!”

Nicola swung her night stick at Astyr’s head. He held up his hand as if to ward off the blow. There was a sudden flash of light and instead of a satisfying jarring impact of wood on head, the night stick broke in half. The good solid oak had been turned into a French loaf. Astyr was holding the top half in his hand. He took a large bite out of it and chewed appreciatively. “Hm, don’t suppose you’ve got any Brie to go with that?” he asked innocently.

“Right, that does it!” Nicola flipped her broken bread night stick up into the air. As Astyr looked up to watch it fly over his head she kicked him very hard in the abdomen. The demon gasped and spat out a large mouthful of half-chewed bread. Then very slowly, he collapsed in a heap on the floor, where he curled up and made satisfying whimpering sounds. Nicola was still extremely cross. That night stick had great sentimental value; it had been a gift from her paternal grandparents the day she graduated from police college.

“Now, I must ask you to accompany me to the station to assist me with my enquiries.” She gestured to the two constables. “Take him away!”

Turner and Sharples moved in fast to restrain the prisoner, handcuffing his hands behind his back and taking a firm hold on his arms. Partly this was to make sure that the prisoner didn’t try to make an escape, but mostly to make sure that their Captain didn’t hit him anymore. They hustled the semi-conscious Demshul away to the Black Maria and the relative safety of the police cells.

\-------------*

“So what happens now?” asked Sydney. They were back in Nicola’s office at the Central Police Station. The prisoner had been safely delivered to the cells, fortunately without any further unfortunate accidents, but still in no fit state to take an interest in proceedings or make a formal statement. Sydney had checked to make sure he had no permanent injuries, and then reassured Rana, who was still sulking in her cell, that everything would be fine if she just sat there while everything was sorted out.

“Now we wait for Justice to take its course,” said Nicola. “We’ll hold your friend and this evil demon in the cells overnight and then they’ll be up before the magistrate in the morning. If she co-operates and helps fix all the trains, then your friend Rana will probably be let off with a warning. The wizards at the University will want to talk to her too. Get her to cooperate if you can; it’ll be so much easier for everyone. As for this demon, he’ll be remanded in custody while we work out what to do with him, but he won’t be able to hurt you ever again. I’ll make sure of that. He’ll be going to gaol for a long time. With a bit of luck and if we don’t get some damned radical judge, we may even manage to get the bastard properly hanged.”

“Oh, er, good,” replied Sydney. She’d been trying to stop Astyr for so long, but now that she’d finally succeeded she wasn’t feeling the triumph that she had anticipated. And as for Astyr being hanged… He was an evil Demshul, destroyer of worlds, so why did she have such a horrid feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of his lawful execution?

“And me? What happens to me?”

“Oh, we’ll have to go through the motions of course. You’ll receive a formal caution for offending public decency, but we won’t take it further. So long as you wear decent clothes in public of course. I’m sure we can find a proper outfit for you that allows you to keep your ‘Holy’ armour.”

“And what about getting home? Astyr is the only one who knows how to travel between the myriad worlds.”

“That could take a while. But don’t worry, if he won’t co-operate we have the best wizards in the world right here in Widdershins to work on the problem. They’ll be all over this. I can see we are going to learn an awful lot from you.”

“And now?”

“Tell you what. We have a tradition in the police force of marking the arrest of a particularly dangerous criminal or the solving of a difficult case. We call it ‘going up the pub’. A pub – that’s short for ‘public house’ - is a sort of communal building where you can buy food and drink. Especially drink.”

“Yes, I am familiar with the concept, thank you. Does it sell beer?”

“Seems that the strange world you are from is more like Widdershins than I thought. And yes, you can most certainly get beer. Come on, let’s get out of here and we can talk like civilised women. I was due to go off duty an hour ago, and after the day I’ve had, I could do with a drink.”

Nicola took Sydney to the Snide Arms on Old Market Square, a rather more upmarket inn than the Goat and Compass on Gibbet Street, where most of the police officers liked to retire for their drinking sessions after work. She wanted a little privacy. At the bar, she ordered a pint of best bitter for Sydney.

 “You may find our British beer something of an acquired taste,” she told the Paladin as she handed her the tankard and turned back to pay the barmaid. “If you don’t like it you could try some…”

Sydney put the empty pint down on the bar and wiped her lips.

“Tastes perfectly fine to me. Should we have some?”

“Ah… actually, I don’t drink alcohol. I’m afraid it might dull my mind. But I’ll join you with a fruit juice if you don’t mind.”

“Suit yourself.” Sydney had her tankard refilled and the barmaid had already prepared Nicola’s usual fruit juice.  She knew not to add the paper umbrella. The ladies took their drinks over to the privacy of one of the alcove tables.

“Where can I stay tonight?” asked Sydney. “As a Paladin of Kansen I don’t mind roughing it, but I expect I won’t be allowed to just sleep outside. Anyway, I’m told it’s going to rain tonight. Is this place an inn? I could stay here, but I don’t even know what sort of money you use here. I certainly don’t have anything to pay for a bed. Perhaps they will let me work for my board?”

“You could come and stay with me.”

“With you? That’s kind, but… well, won’t your husband object?”

“Husband? Oh I don’t have a husband. I’ve no time for men.”

“Really, I would have thought that a woman like you would have… oh! I see!”

Nicola reached out and took Sydney’s hand is hers. Sydney blushed but didn’t take her hand away.

“We have so much in common, you and me. We are both fighting for order and justice, often without support, without praise and without reward, because we both know in our hearts that it is the right thing to do. I can see you’ve been alone for a long time, fighting against this demon, but never giving up, even when it seemed that you could never win. And now you’ve defeated him; you’ve won. It may be a while before we can get you back to your people. We may never be able to get you home. But you don’t have to be alone any more. And I’m hoping we have more in common that a passion for justice.”

Sydney held her gaze, her mind a tangle of confusing thoughts and impulses. Two pints of good Yorkshire beer on an empty stomach weren’t helping.

“But… I am sworn to the service of Kansen. I have duties...”

“Even paladins need to rest, when they get the chance. Release all that tension, prepare for the next fight.”

“I… I don’t know… I shouldn’t…”

“All this training you’ve had. They taught you how to do all sorts of amazing things. But they never taught you about relationships or anything like that did they?”

“No. I get so confused sometimes. I’m not sure... who… what…” She blushed and turned away.

“There comes the time when the power of an oncoming wave can’t be turned away. There’s nothing wrong in batting for both sides you know.”

Sydney had never heard of cricket, but the simile was plain enough.

“Why deny yourself?” continued Nicola. Sydney met her gaze and smiled.

“Perhaps… perhaps you are right… perhaps I could…OH NO!”

“What?!”

“Astyr – you’ve let him go!”

“No – at least if they have there’s going to be…”

“He’s leaving! I can feel him casting.”

“He won’t be able to summon anything in his…”

“You’ve let his hands free!”

“Of course, once he’s safe in a cell. This isn’t the dark ages!”

“But that’s all he needs to Jump! And he’ll take me and Rana with him! There’s no way I’ll ever find my way back!”

Nicola saw odd streamers, like insubstantial paper covered in runes, flowing around Sydney’s body.

“Nicola! Nicola I…” and then Sydney was gone. Nicola was left looking at her empty chair. She sighed in frustration and said a very rude word.

**Author's Note:**

> _Captain Nicola Barber and the town of Widdershins are the creations of Ms Kate Ashwin_   
>  _Sydney Treuno, Astyr Kaedermos and Rana Tashovik are the creations of Ms Christina Major_   
>  _Saint Finnemede the Overdressed and the Princess Hasenpfeffer von Spätzle are the creations of Studio Foglio LLC_   
>  _[The Weathercock](https://youtu.be/gEE1LL8i1Ho) courtesy of Mr Jethro Tull_


End file.
